Keeping Score with Chip Ainsworth: Two decades since the Curse was lifted

CONTRIBUTED IMAGE/CHIP AINSWORTH

CONTRIBUTED IMAGE/CHIP AINSWORTH

Published: 10-25-2024 4:03 PM

Modified: 10-26-2024 12:15 AM

Good morning!

Twenty years ago on Saturday New England’s unrequited love affair with the local nine was consummated. The Red Sox were in St. Louis and about to win their first World Series since the end of the Great War.

After Manny Ramirez put a Jeff Suppan pitch over the left field fence I hopped in the car and drove 90 miles to Boston, parked near Kenmore Square and walked past the mounted police who were waiting for all hell to break loose. I crossed over the expressway and turned onto Lansdowne Street and put my hand flat against the Green Monster. The long wait had ended.

On Hope Street in Greenfield, Recorder night editor Samantha (Sam) Wood splayed a double-decker headline over the fold that said “Red Sox win World Series.” In smaller type but still over the fold she added, “Fans gleeful; Curse is lifted.”

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New Englanders hated the Yankees because they had the best players — the Mantles, Fords and Berras — and with free agency George Steinbrenner added the likes of Catfish Hunter, Reggie Jackson… and Bucky Dent.

Before a game in 1978, Steinbrenner and his general manager Al Rosen stood under the grandstand behind home plate checking out the crowd. Both men were impeccably dressed but largely unnoticed in the swirling mass of fans.

A sportscaster had speculated that Steinbrenner was going to sell the team, so I took a deep breath, walked over and introduced myself.

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“Oh yes,” he remarked as if he knew the name.

“How long do you expect to own the Yankees?” I asked.

After they exchanged bemused glances, Steinbrenner looked me in the eye, smiled and said, “For as long as I’m breathing.”

****

Red Sox PR chief Mary Jane Ryan let me into the park early on Oct. 2, 1978, and I went straight to the dugout and sat next to manager Don Zimmer. Alone together, neither of us said a word until Bob Lemon stepped onto the field. Zimmer hollered to his Yankee counterpart who clasped his hands and raised them skyward.

The sound of metal cleats on wood came from shortstop Rick Burleson who was walking from the clubhouse to the dugout with a cord’s worth of lumber. As he shoved each bat into the rack he said, “This is the bat I’ll homer off Guidry. Thump! This is the bat I’ll homer off Gossage. Thump! This is the bat I’ll homer off Figueroa. Thump!”

Standing room was three-deep so I stood on a small brick outcrop behind Section 27 until the seventh inning when Chris Chambliss and Roy White both singled and Bucky Dent stepped to the plate. Unable to stand the pressure, I was under the grandstand buying a beer when the air seemed to leave the stadium.

At the same moment, Northampton’s Mike Noonan was sitting in the first row of Section 33 next to the Green Monster. He saw Dent swing and watched what looked like an ordinary fly ball hit to left field. “Yastrzemski was running toward the seats looking up, expecting to catch it or see it hit off the wall,” said Noonan. “I’ll never forget the look on his face after the ball went into the screen.”

YouTube clips show Yastrzemski bent over with his hands on knees, looking like he wanted to throw up. After Reggie Jackson homered in the eighth inning, I wandered out of Fenway Park and stumbled around Kenmore Square like a doomed character in a black-and-white film.

When I got back to the Valley Advocate, there was a letter from the Red Sox with press credentials to cover them in the playoffs.

****

Eight years later on Oct. 25, 1986, I returned home from watching the UMass football team beat BU at the old Braves Field in time to see Roger Clemens face the Mets at Shea Stadium. “Stick a fork in the Mets, they’re done,” promised Boston Globe columnist Mike Barnicle. 

I still get flashbacks of that fateful night whenever a team’s ahead by two runs with two out and nobody's on in the last inning. Down to their final strike as the saying goes, but there’s no sense reliving what happened next.

****

It was the witching hour of Oct. 16, 2003, and I was on the upper deck of Yankee Stadium just leaving the men’s room when Charlie Steiner’s call of Aaron Boone’s home run resonated over the loudspeakers. I sprinted down the ramp and got out of the Bronx faster than a getaway driver after an armed heist.

All night I’d been surrounded by blue collar Yankee fans. The guy to my left reminded me of Lefty Ruggiero, Al Pacino’s character in Donnie Brasco. When Pedro Martinez knocked down a Yankees hitter, he stared out at the mound and muttered, “Boy, he’s got balls.”

On the highway home a sedan passed me going 90 mph on three tires. Sparks flew off the rim as the car disappeared into the night. An hour or so later, I was pulled over by a Connecticut state trooper who let me go after I showed him my scorecard.

****

One year later my son Mat and I went to the third game of the ALCS and arrived in time to see Derek Jeter pumping his fist rounding third base after Alex Rodriguez’s home run off Bronson Arroyo. The final score was 19-8 and the Red Sox were on the precipice of being swept and humiliated.

Netflix is airing a series about Boston’s historic comeback, but winning really does change everything. The bandwagon got bigger and the tickets became more expensive. I’m no longer a Red Sox fan, but Mike Noonan has kept the faith. 

He winters in South Carolina but will be back on April 4 for his 57th straight opening day. “God willing. I still love my team and still go to the games.”

Mike strung for sports editor Milt Cole at the Hampshire Gazette in the 1970s and worked there full time in circulation from 1978-2008. “I was in charge of the kids on their paper routes,” he said.

He’s kept all his ticket stubs — over a thousand — and for 10 years he organized a Red Sox trip for his Northampton High School classmates. “Everybody needs a passion, or what’s life worth living for?” he said.

“In 1975, Pat Goggins, Denny Nolan and I purchased a partial season ticket plan for Sundays, holidays and Opening Day. They cost $5.25 each for loge boxes on the third base side. We went to all six postseason games that season — $7 for the ALCS and $15 for the World Series — and we’ve gone to every Red Sox playoff game since then.”

When the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004, “My good friend Jimmy Larkin said let's go to Joe's Cafe to celebrate. The next morning I had to work at the Gazette and stopped at St. Mary's Cemetery to put a Red Sox sweatshirt on my dad's grave. He died in July, 2001, and never got to see them win a World Series.”

Noonan said he looked around and saw others putting mementoes on headstones. He felt the importance of it, and how much the Red Sox mattered to everyone. “And that’s when I finally broke down in tears.”

Chip Ainsworth is an award-winning columnist who has penned his observations about sports for decades in the Pioneer Valley. He can be reached at chipjet715@icloud.com